


My Name Is Carver

by dankou



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: CW Misgendering, CW deadnaming, Gen, Trans Carver Hawke, but it's only a small bit - this is a happy/positive oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 21:17:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20088922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dankou/pseuds/dankou
Summary: About Carver and his relationship with his name.





	My Name Is Carver

“Marian! Dear, what have you done!” Leandra gasped in shock at discovering one of her two youngest children in front of the looking glass with sheers in their hand and clumps of chopped hair on their shirt and the floorboards around their feet.

“I don’t want to be called Marian anymore!” the young child snapped, fists clenched in balls by their sides and reddening in the face, “I want to be like Brother!”

Leandra frowned.    
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she huffed, snatching the sheers from her child’s hand, “Maker, what am I going to do with you…”

They could feel their face growing hotter as they fought back tears.    
“Whatever!” they exclaimed defensively, “I don’t care what you think anyway!”

And in that breath, they stormed upstairs into their room slamming the door shut behind them and jumped face down onto their bed. 

How could their mother be so… so… horrible! They wanted to be a boy! They… _He_ **is** a boy, damn it!

Beneath his face he could feel his pillow grow damp from tears. It’s not  _ his _ fault he was born like this! He didn’t  _ ask _ to be identical to his twin sister!

He heard his door creak open.

“Knock knock,” greeted his father softly.

“Go away!” he responded, voice muffled into his pillow.

Stepping inside regardless, Malcolm closed the door behind him and sat on his son’s bed beside him. 

“I heard everything,” he stated calmly, “Don’t worry, Bud, your mother will come around.” 

His son remained silent.

“So, what should I call you, then, hm? How about Malcolm Junior?” Malcolm laughed, trying to lighten the mood a little.

“Ew, no,” spoke a small voice from the pillow. 

“Well, we’ve got to call you something,  _ Junior! _ Got any ideas?”

The boy sluggishly sat up, cross-legged on his bed next to his father and rubbed his eyes with the ball of his hands.

“Uh,” he began, letting his hands fall into his lap, “Dunno. Didn’t get that far.”

The pair sat in deep thought, sticking their bottom lip out and furrowing their eyebrows almost identically.

“Dafydd?” Malcolm suggested, hesitantly. His son hummed, unsure on that name.

“Jacob? I dunno…” the boy suggested.

After another moment’s thought, Malcolm’s eyes lit up as if he just came up with the greatest idea.

“Carver! How about Carver? I think it would suit you well. What do you think?” Malcolm turned to his son with a hopeful grin on his face.

“Carver… Huh. Yeah!” Carver grinned up at his father, dimples hugging his cheeks, “Carver Jacob Dafydd Hawke — I like it!”

Malcolm chuckled, “You’re taking all of the names?”

Carver gave a cheeky smirk, “Hell yeah, I am!”

“Well,  _ Carver,  _ we can’t have you going around with your hair like this!” Malcolm ruffled his son’s hair playfully, “I’ll go and grab the sheers to neaten your hair up a bit, eh? And I’m sure we could give you some of Garrett’s old clothes to wear, too.”

Malcolm rose to his feet and headed towards the door. Before he left the room, however, he turned to Carver to reassure him.

“Don’t worry, Junior. I’ll talk to your mother. She was just shocked, alright?”

Carver nodded, biting his bottom lip a little. Malcolm returned a comforting smile and then left the room to head downstairs.

Carver let himself fall onto his back, head resting on his pillow and eyes staring at the ceiling above him. 

He almost couldn’t believe it. The relief he felt was almost overwhelming.

_ Carver, huh? _ He had a new name, now. A name that felt right.  _ Carver Hawke!  _

The excitement had him repeating his name over and over in his mind.

_ Carver…  _

_ Carver… Carver…  _

“...Ser Maurevar Carver. _—__Carver!”_

The name at the end of his father’s old letter Garrett handed to him as a peace offering to atone for their last squabble had caught Carver off guard.

He looked up from the parchment at his brother in disbelief.

“The templar who allowed Father to leave Kirkwall,” Garrett confirmed, turning to the lit fireplace in Gamlen’s hovel near to where they were standing, “Your namesake.”

“A templar?” Carver questioned, genuinely shocked to find out this information. He was conflicted in how to feel about this. Every templar he’d heard about or met were awful people who were self-righteous and believed themselves to be morally above everyone else.

Turning to join his brother by the fireplace, he peered over at him with an eyebrow quirked in confusion.

“Have we met a templar who isn’t a colossal prig?” Carver scoffed.

“Well, there you go then,” Garrett retorted.

“I wonder how it compares to yours,” Carver thought sincerely, but spoke with a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

“I’m sure someone thought far too long about my name,” Garrett jested, “Point is,  _ this _ was a swordsman.”

_ Oh. _ That thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Quickly glancing back down at the letters, he skimmed through and read some more.

“...A man who let him look ahead. It would always mean, ‘skill thoughtfully applied.’ Not exactly ‘master of all blades,’ but…” Carver returned his gaze back to his brother, “Father actually thought there was worth to a swordsman.” 

After years of believing he was less important to his father than his siblings for not being gifted with the ability of magic, after years of growing distant from the mages in his family as his father spent more and more time with them, after years of feeling left behind and that something was expected of him that he just couldn’t give…  _ he meant something. _

Being a swordsman _ meant _ something to his father. The name given to him was more than just a spontaneous suggestion, it reflected how his father saw him and the value in who he was.

“Thank you, Brother,” he spoke softly with gratitude, “It’s… a connection I didn’t think was there.”


End file.
